I've been away from the game for awhile, but have decided to give it a try again. I like playing the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire. However, not long into the game, I face massive rebellions unless I agree to lower level of authroity. Nearly everyone rebels. I couldn't see anyway to win so early in the game. So I agree to their terms. Now, when I do that there is a rebellion by a pretender. It looked, like I could handle that. Then the notice that people flock to the pretender's cause and that army of a thousand, becomes several armies of eight to ten thousand. I have just the early imperial forces and little money. Yet, the difficulty shows easy. If that is easy, then hard, must mean the enemy has nukes. What am I doing wrong?
Major revolts about crown authority
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The difficulty showed at the starting screen is a bit....inaccurate. Here's the breakdown:
Default: 50%
Emperor: -10% (as you can do some stuff as Emperor which Kings could not, like asking dukes to be vassals without negative modifier, and having king-level vassals)
The crux is the vassals part. For difficulty 'calculation', they decrease the %. But, if you don't manage them well, they become the difficulty.
Default: 50%
Emperor: -10% (as you can do some stuff as Emperor which Kings could not, like asking dukes to be vassals without negative modifier, and having king-level vassals)
The crux is the vassals part. For difficulty 'calculation', they decrease the %. But, if you don't manage them well, they become the difficulty.
The Roman Emperor can revoke ducal titles at will for no cost, abuse it at the beginning of the game.
Ok, but there is no time to really manage the vassals before this happens. I have tried gifts, with what little money I have in that first two year. I've married my children to them. I even give in on the crown authority, but nothing seems to prevent pretenders. It never did this before? Did something modify the game to make it much more difficult, in regards to crown authority and pretenders? Never had those problems a few months ago.
Pretenders simply means the no.2 and no.3 in line to the title. Unless you want to run a very tight ship with only 1 heir, that is what you have to live with.
Thanks for the good advice and information. I still wonder why such a drastic change than what the game was like before. Cheers all.
When you stopped playing before, was this before LoR, when the factions mechanic was introduced?
If so, that's what's changed. Whereas before you would get flat revolt risks for each individual vassal, now they band together for certain goals. Be sure to periodically check your factions page and, if you cannot win the backers over, imprison (watch to see if they try any plots so you can avoid tyranny if possible) or plot to kill them. You can also send your spymaster to scheme in their counties, which can force them to leave a faction at the expense of a small opinion malus.
If so, that's what's changed. Whereas before you would get flat revolt risks for each individual vassal, now they band together for certain goals. Be sure to periodically check your factions page and, if you cannot win the backers over, imprison (watch to see if they try any plots so you can avoid tyranny if possible) or plot to kill them. You can also send your spymaster to scheme in their counties, which can force them to leave a faction at the expense of a small opinion malus.
Playing in France in 1066 is just as much a pain in the ass as in the ERE. 4 dukes have a lot of power; one is a claimant to king, Flanders wants independence, and Toulouse is, for some odd reason, always the first to plot. Add to that the fact that you can´t get anyone with Grey Eminence in time to educate the toddler and the result is a recipe for some very nasty rebellions.
As money becomes less scarce, delaing with factions becomes easier because it´s easier to assassinate.
As money becomes less scarce, delaing with factions becomes easier because it´s easier to assassinate.
In simple terms I think the AI has a much easier time revolting with Factions that it did with just plots. For a plot the AI character needed to get or characters to join the plot, for a faction any vassal that is a little unhappy can simply join the faction with no real negative effects. So staying on top of factions before the % of Leige's strength gets too high is important...
The second item, the "people flock to the pretender's cause" is simply an event that has a chance of occurring in revolts. I understand there is a chance of loyalists turning up too, but I have never seen it. One of the recent patches was supposed to calm this down a bit, however the strength of the rebel army is relative to your maximum military strength so the numbers can be huge...
If you didn;t know about Factions, you might not know about Retinues... If you are playing as the Byz you really need to make use of the retinues. In many ways the extra troops rebels get is an offset for the retinues otherwise combating rebels on their own becomes pretty straight forward... I think your retinue also counts towards your % strength for factions, so having a large retinue can help keep the factions in check (I think)..